Lot’s of triumphal coverage of Deloitte’s new business outlook report today across the media. In truth, the always positive Chris Richardson struggles hard to polish the turd:
15 July 2019: Trade wars have seen the volume of world trade stall, and that’s pretty unusual outside of global recessions. But the true damage is the uncertainty that all this creates: businesses and families fear politicians will surprise them, and that makes businesses less likely to risk their money betting on expanding future sales. The more trade exposed nations – including Germany, Japan and several Asian Tigers – have suffered more. So has the UK, with its pain magnified by the self-inflicted injuries of Brexit.
The US has held up better, but some leading indicators have the wobbles. China has held up too, with fading trade partly offset by rising stimulus and resilient consumers. Overall global growth looks set to stay in the slow lane through the rest of 2019 and through 2020 as well, though the extent of that slowdown looks to be contained as central banks start to boost their assistance to growth, and as government budgets do the same.
